The future of energy generation and storage

[Smurf1976]

despite the claims that renewavbles are cheaper than fossil fuel or nuclear supplied power, the cost of energy just keeps rising.

The big problem there is the market and that it's intentionally deigned to be volatile.

Suppose hypothetically that you'd bought shares in a company for $48 each early this morning then at lunch time found their value was -$110 each. So you'd have to pay someone to take them if you wanted to sell, you've lost over 3 times what you invested and that's without using leverage.

Then later this afternoon the shares had not only recovered all their losses but were trading at $90 each. Since then however, they've lost 90% of that value in the past few hours.

Not to worry though, they're forecast to be worth over $3800 each by tomorrow morning. Followed by a prompt crash to negative values, below zero, by lunchtime.

Now realise I didn't make that up and I'm not actually talking about shares. That's just the actual spot price of electricity in SA.

The big problem with all this is the technical side has been captured by political ideology. It's as simple as that. Because no engineer would come up with a system like the above. They came up with the broad concept of a variable price to encourage shifting consumption to when supply is plentiful yes, the idea of off-peak water heating, irrigation pumping and so on goes back a very long way, but they sure didn't come up with the idea of a ridiculously volatile market where every generating company has a team of traders working 24/365. Just a modest, predictably lower price when supply is plentiful is more than sufficient to encourage time shifting of water heaters, bulk water pumping, EV chargers and any other load a consumer finds practical to shift in return for a lower price. It doesn't need such insanely high volatility.

Then there's the environmental side and again that's ridiculously politicised. On one hand any mention of batteries gets enthusiasts excited. Any mention of hydro has those same people ready to march down the street in protest. As with the market however, it lacks rationality and to illustrate that I'll just point out that the entire worldwide battery fleet at present has about half the energy storage capacity of Lake King William, Tasmania. Refer this map:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.com

That's Lake King William on the left. It's a completely man-made reservoir, that the northern part is officially known as "Switchyard Bay" gives a strong hint as to the purpose for which it was created, and as you can see it's not all that large in terms of land area. Zoom out and that's immediately obvious. Not far away Laughing Jack Lagoon, Bronte Lagoon, Brady's Lake, Lake Binney and Tungatinah Lagoon on the right hand side of the screen are also Hydro lakes built immediately after King William.

Now if we could get rid of the industry having been captured by ideology, both on the market side and with the dislike of hydro, then all this would be far, far easier. I'll happily state with confidence that a 100% renewable system could be built and successfully operated reliably so long as those two criteria are met plus actually building things to the required overall scale (since it's obviously going to fail if overloaded, so does coal or gas fail under that situation).

Unless that happens though, we're going to have ongoing issues no matter what the means of generation. Failing to dispatch fossil fuel generation on a least cost manner, due to the action of traders gaming the market, is a big part of the issue. So just sticking with coal won't fix it - and if you go back well retail electricity prices were outpacing inflation prior to any significant use of wind and solar due to that. It's just that due to the effects of compounding it took a while for the public to realise but it started getting out of hand about 16 years ago.

Back to the Lake King William. This is one of the most iconic photos from the history of hydro construction in Tasmania for reasons best explained by saying note the dates on the sign. It took just 8 weeks from the end of WW2 for the HEC to recruit a workforce, get them to a site in a then remote part of Tasmania, set everything up including a concrete plant, prepare the foundations and start pouring concrete on a major project. Back when we got on and did things in Australia with enthusiasm rather than excuses.

Photo: HEC archives. Has been released into the public domain previously.

 

[sptrawler]

Meanwhile demand keeps growing, at least the realities are being voiced and the politicians can't say "We didn't know".
As we keep saying the load isn't a static sum, it is growing and as the population increases, it increases the demand through domestic use and increased industrial load.
Hopefully things speed up, because the load isn't decreasing and neither is the time to build stuff, but the time before heavily cycled coal generators start tripping off line on a more regular basis is getting closer.
Interesting times.

Power-hungry data centres scrambling to find enough electricity to meet demand

The "cloud" that powers everything from sending an email to asking an AI chatbot a question needs massive amounts of power to run, and that's making energy experts nervous.

www.abc.net.au

Australia is one of the top five data centre hubs in the world.

There are 214 data centres spread across the country, according to the Australian Information Industry Association.

With the explosion of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, the industry is expected to grow exponentially.
Data centres are already big power users in Australia.

They need significant amounts of electricity to run high-intensity computing and cooling systems.

Just one large data centre can consume the same amount of energy required to power 50,000 homes.

Morgan Stanley estimates that data centres are currently using 5 per cent (1,050 MW) of the electricity on Australia's power grid and that is expected to grow to 8 per cent (2,500 MW) by 2030.

Some estimates even suggest they could require up to 15 per cent of the power on the grid by then.
As the nation races to electrify, with households dumping gas appliances and more people driving electric vehicles, the grid is already under pressure from rising demand.

The Australian Energy Market Operator's latest Integrated Systems Plan anticipates overall electricity consumption from the grid to nearly double by 2050.

The director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Bruce Mountain, said Australia was not well placed to cope with that increasing demand.

"We are now hitting the difficult stages of the energy transition," Professor Mountain told The Business.

"We've got wind and sun and land, but we don't have other clean energy, biomass or decent amounts of hydro or nuclear.

"And that's a disadvantage that we face that other countries don't face."

Professor Mountain thinks although the data centre sector is a vital service to Australia's economy, the boom will make the energy transition more challenging.

"They make the transition challenge harder, because not just that you need to replace coal-fired generation, you need to build new capacity to meet rising demand," he said.
"It's not yet an insurmountable problem, but if the demand continues to escalate at the rate it has, based on the recent developments, I think it is an issue."
The director of the Energy Program at Grattan Institute, Tony Wood, agreed that the sector presents a unique challenge to the grid.

"That means putting pressure on our electricity grid. It means even putting pressure on our greenhouse gas emissions," he said.

"If you add a lot more demand, and you don't add more supply, then prices go up.
"I think governments can get on top of this, but now is the time to be doing it."

Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the first auction of the Capacity Investment Scheme, which will support 6GW of new power, has received more than 40GW of project registrations, showing there is a strong pipeline of renewables ready to go.
Energy retailer and generator Origin supplies power to about a third of all data centres in Australia.

The man in charge of these accounts said the company was looking at a range of options to meet their needs.

"Typically, we will look at solutions like distributed generation, so wind or solar at site, storage solutions and backup generation, and using energy from the grid as well," James Magill, head of Origin Zero, told The Business.

"Our customers, with their forecasts, would vary somewhat, but typically, those growth forecasts could be between about 10 and 30 per cent per year."

Mr Magill said to meet those energy demands, companies could be strategic about where they build data centres.

"Some of the locations could be more regional, and that can match some of the new renewable generation."

 

[SirRumpole]

Mr Magill said to meet those energy demands, companies could be strategic about where they build data centres.

Maybe there should be a requirement for data centres using more than x kwh to provide a percentage of that supply themselves, like via solar panels.

 

[Smurf1976]

The director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Bruce Mountain, said Australia was not well placed to cope with that increasing demand.

"We are now hitting the difficult stages of the energy transition," Professor Mountain told The Business.

"We've got wind and sun and land, but we don't have other clean energy, biomass or decent amounts of hydro or nuclear.

"And that's a disadvantage that we face that other countries don't face."

What frustrates people like me is we knew this decades ago but politics simply hasn't been willing to listen.

Maybe there should be a requirement for data centres using more than x kwh to provide a percentage of that supply themselves, like via solar panels.

They could but the renewables themselves are the easy bit.

It's what happens when we get a period of low wind in winter that's the hard bit that few want to deal with.

Gas, diesel or large storage hydro either pumped or on river. Pick one but they all upset someone.

 

[sptrawler]

What frustrates people like me is we knew this decades ago but politics simply hasn't been willing to listen.

And still aren't, announcements need to be made now, to have any hope of getting enough deep firming in by 2035, when some of these bigger coal stations will be well past their use by date IMO.

As you said @Smurf1976 :

Gas, diesel or large storage hydro either pumped or on river. Pick one but they all upset someone.

 

[SirRumpole]

And still aren't, announcements need to be made now, to have any hope of getting enough deep firming in by 2035, when some of these bigger coal stations will be well past their use by date IMO.

As you said @Smurf1976 :

Gas, diesel or large storage hydro either pumped or on river. Pick one but they all upset someone.

No reason it couldn't be one or more or all of the above.

Why upset a few people when you can upset a lot.

 

[Smurf1976]

 

[SirRumpole]

No heads rolling after a disaster like that ?

Disgraceful.

 

[sptrawler]

No heads rolling after a disaster like that ?

Disgraceful.

Why would heads roll, they paid a company millions of dollars to build a quarantine facility that wasn't needed, then gave it to the company that built it, didn't they? also pretty lucky the contractor built it on their own land OMG.

Why would heads roll? They would if it had been the opposition, then it would have been a case of looking after their business mates.

Echo chambers abound.

 

[sptrawler]

Energy costs hitting energy intensive processes.
Iit is a niche market, where input costs matter.

Jobs at risk as historic Billson's Brewery announces voluntary administration

The owners of a popular drinks company in North East Victoria have described the "excruciatingly difficult" decision to put their business into voluntary administration.

www.abc.net.au

 

[mullokintyre]

Energy costs hitting energy intensive processes.
Iit is a niche market, where input costs matter.

Jobs at risk as historic Billson's Brewery announces voluntary administration

The owners of a popular drinks company in North East Victoria have described the "excruciatingly difficult" decision to put their business into voluntary administration.

www.abc.net.au

Not sure if energy costs were the driver that caused the failure.
It was one of many factors.
My understanding from one of the creditors is that they had the classic problem of growth at any cost, and did not have the systems in place in manage and report their costs at a granular level.
They knew they were making losses, but were unable to pinpoint which of the processes was the least cost effective.
Pity, but there are many great entrepreneurs who have no business skills.
Mick

 

[sptrawler]

Not sure if energy costs were the driver that caused the failure.
It was one of many factors.
My understanding from one of the creditors is that they had the classic problem of growth at any cost, and did not have the systems in place in manage and report their costs at a granular level.
They knew they were making losses, but were unable to pinpoint which of the processes was the least cost effective.
Pity, but there are many great entrepreneurs who have no business skills.
Mick

Yes in the article they admitted managerial failures, but many businesses would be feeling the pinch ATM, the wage increases, tax increases, superannuation increases and power cost increases at the same time as people having less disposable income, would be testing a lot of business owners skills IMO
I know a local coffee shop owner sold his business about a month ago, it was the happiest I've seen him for quite a while, he's going back to FIFO and he's about 55 years old.
Nice bloke, he and his wife started work at the shop at about 5am and knocked off at 9pm, great location on the foreshore, but were lucky to pull wages after outgoings.

 

[sptrawler]

The problem W.A is having with too much solar, I was going to upgrade my system to a 5kW, but I would have to fit export limiting equipment because the grid can't cope.
As we keep saying all this takes time and the key is storage.

In the world's biggest 'island' grid, the stunning rise of solar power is a lesson, and a warning, for others

Like much of the country, WA is embracing rooftop solar with breathtaking gusto. But the state's position as the world's biggest island grid is posing a unique problem with authorities asking the question — how much solar is too much solar?

www.abc.net.au

 

[SirRumpole]

As we keep saying all this takes time and the key is storage.

This is all a complete mystery to me.

Too much solar power now, what a joke!

Your power company should be paying you to install batteries or off peak hot water systems if they don't want your filthy solar infecting their system.

 

[sptrawler]

This is all a complete mystery to me.

Too much solar power now, what a joke!

Your power company should be paying you to install batteries or off peak hot water systems if they don't want your filthy solar infecting their system.

Yes it is all getting to the hard bit, where some of the fossil fueled generation has to be turned off, but the renewables/storage aren't able to be relied on for uninterrupted power supply.

A bit like going up a really steep hill in a car and needing to go down a gear, but if you put your foot on the clutch you will go backwards and if you don't you will stall.

What you really need is a car with more grunt, but you can't afford it.

So in W.A they need batteries, a lot more batteries, our evening peak is quite high in relation to the grid size so eventually they will have to subsidies house batteries so that people can mitigate their own evening usage.

Also there is a high percentage of people use gas hot water systems in the metro area, as there was a huge deployment of gas connections, during the time that the State had a take or pay gas contract with Woodside, when the pipeline was first built.
So changing those over to day time off peak operation, will have no effect on the electricity demand, people will have to be encouraged to change from gas to electric hot water, which adds another variable to the issue.

As we keep saying this isn't as easy as the politicians think.

 

[Smurf1976]

Too much solar power now, what a joke!

It's simple physics.

Can't generate electricity without a matching load and vice versa.

That's the problem with all this. Lack of an overall integrated plan nothing that nobody, including AEMO, has the authority to implement one. At best someone can produce a proposal in the hope others might implement it or hand over authority.

What's needed though is retail tariff reform, some building code changes in regards to water heating and the construction of storage. All of those are needed but there's a lot of politics etc to be overcome there.

And some of that politics, the deals done, are truly shocking.

 

[sptrawler]

It's simple physics.

Can't generate electricity without a matching load and vice versa.

That's the problem with all this. Lack of an overall integrated plan nothing that nobody, including AEMO, has the authority to implement one. At best someone can produce a proposal in the hope others might implement it or hand over authority.

What's needed though is retail tariff reform, some building code changes in regards to water heating and the construction of storage. All of those are needed but there's a lot of politics etc to be overcome there.

And some of that politics, the deals done, are truly shocking.

The narrative is about how much solar and wind is going in, not whether it can be used, that's the problem when it is about political mileage rather than system integration.
They should be telling the coal generators that the Govt will put in storage and pay for it by reducing the subsidies they are paying to them.

 

[Smurf1976]

The narrative is about how much solar and wind is going in, not whether it can be used, that's the problem when it is about political mileage rather than system integration.

Water heating's a big one at the end user level.

All we need is electric storage water heating on controlled load so as to enable it to operate when wind and solar are most abundant.

The infrastructure for remote switched controlled load already exists in Qld and NSW while in SA and Tas new (but not older) meters have the technical capability to switch a load on and off, and they have communications. Not sure about WA there.

The idea being to simply use the water heaters as a dump load, turn them on around midday and heat a full day's worth of hot water. That gets around the "too much solar" problem both in total and within the distribution network and puts it to use. In doing so it enables the economic installation of more solar which, with the water heaters off, will displace other generation (eg coal) during the morning and later afternoon. Plus it directly gets rid of gas use for water heating which, depending on location, is the largest or second largest energy use in most homes and also a big use in some commercial situations eg hotels / motels.

Trouble is a political deal was done in 2006 to not simply not do this but to actively stop it and somewhat remains intact today.

 

[sptrawler]

Water heating's a big one at the end user level.

All we need is electric storage water heating on controlled load so as to enable it to operate when wind and solar are most abundant.

The infrastructure for remote switched controlled load already exists in Qld and NSW while in SA and Tas new (but not older) meters have the technical capability to switch a load on and off, and they have communications. Not sure about WA there.

The idea being to simply use the water heaters as a dump load, turn them on around midday and heat a full day's worth of hot water. That gets around the "too much solar" problem both in total and within the distribution network and puts it to use. In doing so it enables the economic installation of more solar which, with the water heaters off, will displace other generation (eg coal) during the morning and later afternoon. Plus it directly gets rid of gas use for water heating which, depending on location, is the largest or second largest energy use in most homes and also a big use in some commercial situations eg hotels / motels.

Trouble is a political deal was done in 2006 to not simply not do this but to actively stop it and somewhat remains intact today.

Yes the whole issue is in a state of confusion, the narrative is, we are going to become a renewable superpower.

The reality is we can't even facilitate getting enough renewables and storage in place, just to retire our coal generators, it's just diabolical.
The generators aren't going to invest billions on renewables, if the can't sell their output, it doesn't make sense for them to install it.

So as you say, they either need to reconfigure the load so that the output can be sold into supply, or IMO they need to put in a ton of storage so that the output can be sold into storage charging.

To become a renewable super power, we need to not just shut down the fossil fueled generation, we need to also put in enough to feed industry and growth, plus replace fossil fueled transport and then put in enough extra that we can actually sell the output for overseas users.

It is starting to look a bit pie in the sky to me, hopefully I'm wrong, but 2030 is getting close, let's not forget Snowy 2 was announced in March 2017 and the preliminary planning was done years before, 7 years later we are extending coal station closure dates.

This could all end up an embarrasing mess, unless some rhyme and reason is put into it, the scatter gun approach doesn't appear to achieving much headway.

People still talk about John Howard and his time in office as though it was recently, it will be 17 years since he left office, at the end of this year, time flies, 2050 sounds a long way off, but with huge projects it isn't.

Some seriously structured and coordinated plan needs to be put forward IMO.

 

[SirRumpole]

The trouble with heat pumps ?

I have noticed on a very cold night the my reverse cycle air con (which is a heat pump I believe ) is pumping out "lukewarm" air rather than warm air. Is this typical?