The future of energy generation and storage

Smurf1976 · 15 August 2024

SirRumpole said:
Are these stations just not being maintained , or are they so old it's not worth maintaining them?

In other words is there hope for them if they get proper servicing?

Without commenting on any specific facility, across the fleet it's a mix of issues.

Some good operators in terms of management, engineering, operational procedures, equipment monitoring, maintenance, staff training etc. Also some bad ones on the same measures.

There are certainly companies which, if they had a major incident, would see a lot of eyes rolling in the industry with nobody too surprised. There are others where if an incident happened there'd be a lot of amazement and thinking OK, some incredibly unlikely scenario must've actually occurred but it won't be due to carelessness.

For coal though there's another problem. It's a bit like any situation where someone's decided "it's over" and is now just getting the last out of it and planning their exit. Scrapping a car, demolishing a building, divorce, anything like that. Once they've decided it's game over and won't be around in the long term, any real effort stops and that is very much the case with coal. Most of them have announced closure and put a date on it, in some cases down to the exact day, so they're really just being run to that point and it's a given maintenance won't be any better than someone thinks is required to get to that end date.

Plus some are simply worn out. It's like the 25 year old car with 350,000km on it. Nothing short of a complete reconstruction will bring it back to good condition.

SirRumpole · 15 August 2024

Smurf1976 said:
Without commenting on any specific facility, across the fleet it's a mix of issues.

Some good operators in terms of management, engineering, operational procedures, equipment monitoring, maintenance, staff training etc. Also some bad ones on the same measures.

There are certainly companies which, if they had a major incident, would see a lot of eyes rolling in the industry with nobody too surprised. There are others where if an incident happened there'd be a lot of amazement and thinking OK, some incredibly unlikely scenario must've actually occurred but it won't be due to carelessness.

For coal though there's another problem. It's a bit like any situation where someone's decided "it's over" and is now just getting the last out of it and planning their exit. Scrapping a car, demolishing a building, divorce, anything like that. Once they've decided it's game over and won't be around in the long term, any real effort stops and that is very much the case with coal. Most of them have announced closure and put a date on it, in some cases down to the exact day, so they're really just being run to that point and it's a given maintenance won't be any better than someone thinks is required to get to that end date.

Plus some are simply worn out. It's like the 25 year old car with 350,000km on it. Nothing short of a complete reconstruction will bring it back to good condition.

Well, I'm sure we would all like to know if the lights will go out when the coal plants shut down.

qldfrog · 15 August 2024

SirRumpole said:
Well, I'm sure we would all like to know if the lights will go out when the coal plants shut down.

I actually do not! Why?
People have to take responsibility for their dimwit actions, in that case the relentless coal and fossil fuel are bad, "we can solve it all with free solar wind and batteries.." batteries..rol
anyone with even a quarter of a brain knows it is not possible.
maybe if we had decent hydro or nuclear, or had several snowy2 already up and running but we have none.
A full crisis now is imho better than kicking the can further and further while sinking into a no return abyss of blackouts and overpriced basic needs : heating cooling not to mention industry hospitals etc
Our losers in charge need to wake up, and the "populace" aware

Smurf1976 · 15 August 2024

SirRumpole said:
Well, I'm sure we would all like to know if the lights will go out when the coal plants shut down.

I’ll post a list of the closure dates later.

SirRumpole · 15 August 2024

Smurf1976 said:
I’ll post a list of the closure dates later.

Thanks. I asked a generic question. not specifically aimed at you but at the people 'in charge' in case they may be watching this site rather than their backs. LOL.

sptrawler · 15 August 2024

SirRumpole said:
Thanks. I asked a generic question. not specifically aimed at you but at the people 'in charge' in case they may be watching this site rather than their backs. LOL.

What I find interesting, is how confident Chris is, he is either not as bright as I thought he was, or he knows something we don't.
Time will tell as usual.
There may be a huge 180 by Labor, it wouldn't be the first time and it doesn't affect their voter base.
Interesting times, that's for sure.

SirRumpole · 15 August 2024

Meanwhile, back in the real world, how power prices are impacting 'ordinary' people.

'That tariff should be outlawed': Why Australians are struggling to decipher some 'smart' meter charges

Like millions of Australians, Doreen Fawcett is grappling with a nightmare of unwanted power bill complexity. Calls for simplification are growing.

www.abc.net.au

qldfrog · 15 August 2024

SirRumpole said:
Meanwhile, back in the real world, how power prices are impacting 'ordinary' people.

'That tariff should be outlawed': Why Australians are struggling to decipher some 'smart' meter charges

Like millions of Australians, Doreen Fawcett is grappling with a nightmare of unwanted power bill complexity. Calls for simplification are growing.

www.abc.net.au

My views on this thread, plus immigration CC, the voice, Ukraine...reveals at long last the truth:
I am a Chinese AI

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/china-trying-to-control-debate-in-australia-intelligence-insider-warns/news-story/9b79ac22a1002e4ee061c96d04f77f76

Now please let's use that ai on the market

sptrawler · 15 August 2024

SirRumpole said:
Meanwhile, back in the real world, how power prices are impacting 'ordinary' people.

'That tariff should be outlawed': Why Australians are struggling to decipher some 'smart' meter charges

Like millions of Australians, Doreen Fawcett is grappling with a nightmare of unwanted power bill complexity. Calls for simplification are growing.

www.abc.net.au

Yes I mentioned a while back that meters are getting upgraded, free of charge, it doesn't take a genious to realise where that is heading.
Time of day charges, it is hard for people to dodge the cost, unless they can afford solar and batteries to offset their usage.
It's hard on those with limited money.

qldfrog · 15 August 2024

sptrawler said:
Yes I mentioned a while back that meters are getting upgraded, free of charge, it doesn't take a genious to realise where that is heading.
Time of day charges, it is hard for people to dodge the cost, unless they can afford solar and batteries to offset their usage.
It's hard on those with limited money.

And if you have solar and battery, they will be used to the grid benefit, not yours, this is a given .
Your battery will be depleted when you sill need it, and your solar bought for zip

sptrawler · 15 August 2024

SirRumpole said:
Meanwhile, back in the real world, how power prices are impacting 'ordinary' people.

'That tariff should be outlawed': Why Australians are struggling to decipher some 'smart' meter charges

Like millions of Australians, Doreen Fawcett is grappling with a nightmare of unwanted power bill complexity. Calls for simplification are growing.

www.abc.net.au

Another example of being able to get stuff done, not much outrage about punishing those who can least afford it.

Smurf1976 · 15 August 2024

Smurf1976 said:
I’ll post a list of the closure dates later.

For the existing coal-fired stations:

Queensland:
*Callide B (700 MW) = 2028
*Gladstone (1680 MW) = 2035
Tarong #1 & #2 (700 MW) = 2036
Tarong #3 & #4 (700 MW) = 2037
Tarong North (443 MW) = 2037
Kogan Creek (750 MW) = 2042
Stanwell #1 (350 MW) = 2043
Stanwell #2 (350 MW) = 2044
Stanwell #3 (350 MW) = 2045
Stanwell #4 (350 MW) = 2046
Millmerran (852 MW) = 2051
Callide C (886 MW) = No closure date announced

*But in practice both are already somewhat de-rated. Callide B in terms of peak capacity has been lowered. Gladstone still can run to capacity, but in practice is very rarely pushed there and never for long.

NSW:
Eraring (2880 MW) = 19 August 2027
Bayswater (2740 MW) = 2033
Vales Point B (1320 MW) = 2033
Mt Piper (1430 MW) = 2040

Victoria:
Yallourn W (1480 MW) = 2028
Loy Yang A (2210 MW) = 2035
Loy Yang B (1170 MW) = 2047

WA:
Muja C unit 2 (200 MW) (aka unit 6) = 1 April 2025
Collie (340 MW) = October 2027
Muja D (446 MW) = October 2029
Bluewaters (416 MW) = Not announced but they've written the financial value down to zero, and the mine that supplies it is broke, so "the writing is on the wall".

Adding to that the general tendency to move dates forward. You'd be hard pressed to find even one person who's confident Loy Yang B will actually run to 2047 for example. Technically it's viable until then but financially fair chance it goes sooner.

Plus quite a bit of gas-fired plant is also closing in the medium term, as is the gas supply that runs it. Combine that with the coal closures and the situation's more urgent than the coal shutdown dates alone would suggest.

sptrawler · 16 August 2024

sptrawler said:
What I find interesting, is how confident Chris is, he is either not as bright as I thought he was, or he knows something we don't.
Time will tell as usual.
There may be a huge 180 by Labor, it wouldn't be the first time and it doesn't affect their voter base.
Interesting times, that's for sure.

Just to highlight what I mean about doing 180 degree policy changes, it really doesn't cause as much of a problem as people make out IMO, far better to adapt to changing situations than blindly follow a path.

A bit off topic, but just indicating I don't believe that labor will make a complete stuff up of the power system, there is way too much at stake and those that matter will be watching the trajectory.

NZ's prime minister speaks after pressing Anthony Albanese on criminal deportations

New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher Luxon vowed to press Anthony Albanese over Australia's criminal deportations policy when the two leaders sat down for official talks in Canberra.

www.abc.net.au

mullokintyre · 16 August 2024

Callide Power station back in the news(or at least some news) , courtesy of the messy legal argy bargy between FTI Consulting and CS Energy.
it seems that CS Energy , who originally called for the Investigation by forensic engineer Sean Brady, somehow managaed to block the said engineer from interviewing all the people who he might have liked to interview.
Those names were unfortunately not forthcoming in the legal case, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the questions will be sdked of the Qld Premier, given the CS Energy is owned by the government.

From Evil Murdoch Press

Forensic engineer Sean Brady was blocked from interviewing key figures at Queensland government-owned CS Energy as he worked to investigate the causes of a 2021 explosion that crippled the Callide C power station.
Brady’s final report into the debacle was released last month, showing failings by the CS Energy were a major contributor to the explosion, which took the Callide C power station offline – and pushed up power prices for households and business along the east coast.

CS Energy hired Brady in 2021 to investigate the disastrous explosion at the Callide C power station, but has spent the last six months trying to keep Brady and his report from public view.

Much of the damage was done with the release of Brady’s final report last month. It included revelations that senior CS Energy safety officials quit because they were worried that cost-cutting on maintenance and safety systems would eventually result in disaster. It included revelations that the company’s CEO baulked at the $2m cost of implementing new safety systems that could have prevented the Callide C explosion.

And it detailed the extraordinary turnover of staff at Callide that contributed to the disaster – in four years Callide had four general managers, at least two maintenance managers, and four different production managers.

But there may still be a few more revelations to come, given Brady indicated to the Federal Court on Wednesday that, despite largely being given free rein to conduct his investigation, there were a few people he didn’t get to interview that he might have liked to.

Brady spent Thursday on the witness stand being examined by lawyers acting for FTI Consulting’s John Park, the administrator of the private company that owned half of the CS Energy-operated Callide C power station.

While much of the day’s work was a detailed review of Brady’s report – damaging enough to CS Energy and its political masters in the Miles Labor government in Queensland – there were hints of substantially more to come, buried beneath the surface.

In particular, the question of who Brady sought to interview, but couldn’t.

“Are there people you were unable to interview that you would have liked to have interviewed?” asked lawyers for FTI.

“Yes,” Brady said.

Sadly – despite Brady leaving the obvious invitation hanging – FTI’s lawyers failed to ask the obvious follow up.

But it still leaves the enticing prospect that former CS Energy chairman and Labor powerbroker Jim Soorley might get a call to the witness box, or any of a plethora of former CS Energy CEOs.

But still, despite the fact that Callide C won’t be back online until the end of August, CS Energy is trumpeting the news that it just spent $1.3bn on buying a new wind farm project.

Which, to be fair, can’t actually explode due to the owner’s general incompetence.

Mick

qldfrog · 16 August 2024

mullokintyre said:
Callide Power station back in the news(or at least some news) , courtesy of the messy legal argy bargy between FTI Consulting and CS Energy.
it seems that CS Energy , who originally called for the Investigation by forensic engineer Sean Brady, somehow managaed to block the said engineer from interviewing all the people who he might have liked to interview.
Those names were unfortunately not forthcoming in the legal case, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the questions will be sdked of the Qld Premier, given the CS Energy is owned by the government.

From Evil Murdoch Press

Mick

You mean our postwoman ex premier who just added her postal expertise to Australia post board on top of being a renewable energy world expert.
The later probably linked as a reward to previous post

Smurf1976 · 16 August 2024

mullokintyre said:
Callide Power station back in the news(or at least some news) , courtesy of the messy legal argy bargy between FTI Consulting and CS Energy.
it seems that CS Energy , who originally called for the Investigation by forensic engineer Sean Brady, somehow managaed to block the said engineer from interviewing all the people who he might have liked to interview.
Those names were unfortunately not forthcoming in the legal case, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the questions will be sdked of the Qld Premier, given the CS Energy is owned by the government.

I've avoided naming companies, but incidentally......

Smurf1976 · 16 August 2024

Smurf1976 said:
For the existing coal-fired stations:

In terms of how much they actually generate, output for the 2023-24 financial year as follows.

Actual output from the station in GWh (gigawatt hours) and figure in brackets is % of state total consumption from all sources.

For the coal stations:

Queensland:
Callide B = 4270.558 (6.8%)
Gladstone = 1256.9 (2.0%)
Tarong = 9165.512 (14.6%)
Tarong North = 3391.707 (5.4%)
Kogan Creek = 5467.158 (8.7%)
Stanwell = 8051.669 (12.8%)
Millmerran = 5871.452 (9.3%)
*Callide C = 782.462 (1.2%)

*All output from Callide C was from unit 3 only which had limited availability during the year. Unit 4 still being rebuilt.

NSW:
Eraring = 15,615.325 (20.9%)
Bayswater = 15,548.785 (20.8%)
Vales Point B = 7259.37 (9.7%)
Mt Piper = 6632.498 (8.9%)

Victoria:
Yallour W = 8005.404 (16.8%)
Loy Yang A = 15,647.726 (32.8%)
Loy Yang B = 8525.548 (17.8%)

WA (SWIS only):
**Muja C = 844.619 (3.9%)
Collie = 875.501 (4.1%)
Muja D = 2100.353 (9.7%)
Bluewaters = 2633.261 (12.2%)

**All Muja C output from unit 2 (aka unit 6) due to permanent closure of unit 1 (aka unit 5).

So Victoria, NSW and WA all have heavy reliance on plant that's expected to close in the relatively near future. Queensland as a bit more time but only a bit.

Smurf1976 · 16 August 2024

Smurf1976 said:
Gladstone = 1256.9 (2.0%)

That's an error - should be 6568.828 (10.4%)

Error due to not including all units in the previously posted figure.

sptrawler · 21 August 2024

The problem which I mentioned earlier regarding the limitations in the distribution system, is starting to raise its head.
It is all starting to get to the interesting part, where problem issues converge, too much solar pumping in, too much load pulling out and all getting drawn through an ageing distribution network which wasn't designed for the dynamics it has to perform.
As I mentioned earlier, if I upgraded my solar to 5kW, I had to install export limiting equipment, because the distribution isn't set up to cope with excessive solar pushing back into the system. Simple physics.

Ampol winds back plans to roll out electric car chargers due to "congested grid", as profit takes a knock

Just a few weeks ago the fuel company was announcing plans to open up 300 charging bays by year's end at its sites nationwide.

www.drive.com.au

Fuel station giant Ampol is dialling back plans to have rolled out 300 electric vehicle (EV) charging bays by the end of this year, citing problems connecting to the grid.
Ampol CEO Matt Halliday said the retailer would fall short on its plans to expand the number of EV charging bays from 92 to 300 by the end of this year.
The company blamed difficulties obtaining access to power lines in a congested grid which is already struggling to cope with an influx of renewable energy generation, reports the Australian Financial Review.

mullokintyre · 21 August 2024

This morning the grid was hauling out nearly 7kw from my system, including 1 kw from my battery backup.
Really pissed off with the way orign/powercor control everything.
The bastards take power from my batteries overnight and pay me 3 cents per KWhr.
Then in the wee hours of the morning when the batteries get really low, nstead of being able to use the previous days energy to cater for the requirments, they charge me 29 cents per KWhr for the privelege.
Screwed.
Mick

The future of energy generation and storage

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