This is a mobile optimized page that loads fast, if you want to load the real page, click this text.

The future of energy generation and storage

Jump to new
Yes I assumed that would be the case. But it still shuts down a cheap energy source for grid consumers in preference for an expensive one which is extremely anti competitive.
 
SirRumpole said:
Yes I assumed that would be the case. But it still shuts down a cheap energy source for grid consumers in preference for an expensive one which is extremely anti competitive.
Click to expand...
The problem is, is it really a cheap source for consumers?
I can only speak for my own supplier Origin Energy.
On the plan I have they pay me a fixed rate of 3.3 cents per KWhr.
there is no off peak etc.
The rate they offer for consumers is 26.8 cents per KWhr, plus a daily supply charge of 115 cents/day.
There is no stated limit on how much you can feed back in.
Another plan offers 10 cents/kwhr tariff feed in, but only up to a maximum of 14kwhrs and the daily supply charge goes up to 131 cents per day, and the supply charge is 30.5 cents kwhr.
A third plan gives 6 cents/kwhr feed in once again up to a maximum of 14kwhrs, daily syupply charge of 118cents day, and tariff charge of 27.4 cents/ kwhr.
So no matter which way you look at it, origin always come out on top.
They charge standard rates to the consumer, even when they are paying up to a mere 10% of the costs of electricty to them.
If a customer asks origin to "go green" and only get supplied with renewable energy, its about 31 cents kwhr.
Other retailer/suppliers may be different.
Mick
 
Yes, they will extract as much blood as they can, the question is, how much more expensive would nuclear be?
 
SirRumpole said:
Yes, they will extract as much blood as they can, the question is, how much more expensive would nuclear be?
Click to expand...
At this stage, its not so much an economic issue as a firming issue.
It may well be more expensive, but we have to pay more to provide continuity of upply.
Its one option.
Mick
 
mullokintyre said:
At this stage, its not so much an economic issue as a firming issue.
It may well be more expensive, but we have to pay more to provide continuity of upply.
Its one option.
Mick
Click to expand...
Another option is hydro, can be switched on or off, requires no fuel and lasts as long as nuclear if not longer. But hydro seems to be the solution that dare not speak its name.

Nuclear isnt firming, its baseload, fairly incompatible with VRE.
 
Last edited:
The basic issue IMO isn't what needs doing now, because that is already set in stone, renewables will be deployed and gas will be the firming, so that really isn't the issue.

What the real issue is how much energy is probably going to be required in 2050, when everything including our cars, heavy industry, all domestic consumption will rely on it, because there will no longer be gas to supply it.
At that point it will have to be renewables, or renewables and nuclear.

So with that scenario in mind, as @Smurf1976 has shown on numerous ocassions, they now how much energy is consumed nationally through oil, petrol, coal, biofuel, gas etc usage.

Therefore by extrapolating out that usage and the epected increase required for the propossed "made in Australia and the hydrogen super power export industries" plus the expected population growth demand, they can have a ball park figure of the projected amount of capacity required and the expected surplus needed.

With that information, they then should fairly accurately be able to know whether we have the renwable capacity to fullfil the requirement, or if there needs to be a hybrid system, obviously a lot of countries around the World have done the sums and are thinking they will require nuclear to meet that target and be able to supply their industries with a secure constant power service.
We have a lot of arid unusable land, therefore we have a huge renewable capacity, whether the utilising of it is feasible or possible,or practicle needs to be analysed.
If it already has been analysed, it probably needs to be announced and tested, by experts.

There is no point getting to 2040 and finding that the gas is no longer available and the renewables can't meet the demand, then saying $hit we need to build three nuclear stations, that would be a real cluster pluck.

At the moment no one is looking past the sound bite, the sensational headline, missinformation and the next election, that just isn't a good strategy to build a robust energy system.
As I've said before, we get this wrong we are toast, simple really, do it once do it right, or suffer the consequences.
 
Last edited:
mullokintyre said:
Sorry you are right its baseload.
Mick
Click to expand...
I know, I worked in the power industry my whole career.
We are leading the World in renewable grid penetration and we are still addressing new issues that crop up, yet everyone thinks this is easy.
It isn't, it is a highly technical and changing technology and the experts have to adapt the system to work with ever changing technology, there is a lot of winging it going on IMO.
Grid connected inverters installed on rooftop systems even as recent as 10 years ago, in all probability don't interface with the current ones, technology changes so quickly that a lot of equipment becomes redundant within a couple of years.
It isn't an easy task getting this done, that's what no one is appreciating IMO.
Everyone is focused on my team wants A, your team wants B, it wont work like that IMO.
My son is completely off grid, but still has a 13kW auto start generator.
 
I'll post more about this later but the market notice sums it up:


And also:

 
IMO this article shows how limited the media is on technical issues, they write articles like this on the critical issue of Chinese tech in EV's, yet can't join the dots when it comes to the fact we are far more critically exposed to grid connected batteries that will be the backbone of our electrical system.
Someone is asleep at the wheel IMO and the opposition are no better, they are monitoring Chinese electric cars, but don't realise the problem with Chinese BIG Batteries, that are supplying our firming. FFS

It just shows how little grasp, the politicians have of the technical side of the grid transition, they are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear subs, due to the perceived China threat, yet spend billions on batteries to supply us with critical firming capacity and they obviously can be accessed by China to carry out fault diagnosis.

I mean it really is dumb $hit, the politicians have really no credibility IMO.


America’s proposed ban on connected vehicle technology by Chinese car companies would have a much greater impact in Australia than the U.S.
While Chinese cars have a minor presence in North America, China is now Australia’s third-largest source of new vehicles, and the largest source of electric vehicles by a wide margin.

The Biden Administration has tabled a ban on connected car tech from China, citing cybersecurity and privacy concerns.

A spokesperson for the Department of Home Affairs said “the Government is closely monitoring the developments in the US on this matter, and the Department of Home Affairs has been proactively engaging with the US Government to understand the implications of any proposed regulation.”

U.S. authorities are understood to have briefed Australian counterparts before going public with their concerns.

It supplies about 15 per cent of Australia’s new car market, and that share continue to grow as new electric vehicles enter the market, many equipped with connected services.

Chinese manufacturers such as BYD, MG and GWM represent some of the fastest-growing brands on Australian roads. They will be joined in coming months by new names such as Zeekr, XPeng and Leapmotor, in addition to established manufacturers such as Tesla, Volvo and BMW that source some models from China.

The Albanese Government said it is monitoring developments in the US.

But Shadow Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister James Patterson said it must do more, citing concerns about perceived “inaction” from the government.
 
Smurf1976 said:
I'll post more about this later but the market notice sums it up:
Click to expand...
Explaining this a bit, what's going on is simply a lack of adequate system load, a consequence of the combined effects of:

Weather - the forecast is for sunny and 17 degrees in Melbourne on the 27th, and sunny and 23 degrees on the 28th. So there'll be only quite minor use of heating on the 27th, and most space heating in Victoria is gas anyway, and practically no heating or cooling during the middle of the day on the 28th.

Public holiday - the 27th is a public holiday and the 28th is AFL Grand Final day. This also drops consumption due businesses shut etc.

Clear sky and moderate temperature is perfect conditions for solar PV and this is the big one. Very high expected output from rooftop solar systems combined with low consumption due to the above leaves nowhere for it to go. Therein lies the problem.

As I've said previously, we can't just keep adding more and more wind and solar and expect it to work. There are other things also required and in this case the relevant ones are:

Electrification - replacing the use of gas with electricity especially for water heating which can easily make use of surplus electricity during the middle of the day via a sufficiently sized storage tank.

Load shifting where possible - not forcing but encouraging consumers to shift their consumption to times of abundance.

Storage - batteries and pumped hydro to store the surplus for later use, noting that both technologies are required in practice.

Trouble is, politicians tend to have their heads stuck in the sand with all this. It's all well and good to say we need storage water heating for example, then you realise it's only last year the state government removed its ban on doing so, and it still hasn't come up with an effective scheme to get the load on the system when it's needed. So another cases of politics versus engineering unfortunately and like the rest, the general public wears the cost.
 
What frustrates me @Smurf1976 , is the fact they can implement fuel standards (which don't affect me as I don't have any fossil fueled device), but they can't get their $hit together, to have a cohesive plan to force those who deploy renewables to have an onsite storage facility.
That would enable their generation to be deployed when required, or used for charging when not required.
One would think that would be a basic requirement, of a balanced system design, or is there no design?
 
In a similar vein, governments should never have allowed home rooftop storage to feed back into the grid unless the home also had a similar or greater level of battery storage.
mick
 
mullokintyre said:
In a similar vein, governments should never have allowed home rooftop storage to feed back into the grid unless the home also had a similar or greater level of battery storage.
mick
Click to expand...
But then , providers would need to provide generation whereas nowadays, they buy at 3c a kwh from Paul for 8 h and sell to John down the street at 25-30c ..and no capex cost but 50m of line and one post.
Can not beat that especially as Paul and John daily fee pays for the infrastructure, while paul is paying a daily fee to provide these kwh .
 
Last edited:
A while ago, I mentioned it will be difficult to get the private sector to install the excess storage required, it looks as though that issue is starting to present itself.
They will have to be paid whether they are required or not, another reason for the Govt to own them IMO.

Not enough demand: Big batteries may be told to stand by on empty to avoid rooftop solar switch-off | RenewEconomy

In move to address plunging grid demand in the middle of the day, market operator may force big batteries to discharge and stand by on empty as alternative to switching off rooftop solar.
reneweconomy.com.au

AEMO first approached the market, industry sources tell Renew Economy, with a proposal to invoke “constraints” that would force big batteries to discharge in the morning and stay empty during the middle of the day, ready to charge up and create new demand if required by the operator.

The industry pushed back, arguing that invoking constraints would mean no compensation for lost revenue, and so AEMO has returned with a system similar to the “lack of reserve” (LOR) protocols it uses when it fears there is not enough supply in the grid to meet demand.

In effect, the Minimum System Load (MSL) protocol would operate in a similar vein, but in reverse. In theory, at least, it would mean that big batteries are compensated for the lost trading opportunity if forced to discharge and sit idle, although the regulatory and legal details are still being cleared up.
 
Sounds a bit Monty Pythonish to me.
 
mullokintyre said:
In a similar vein, governments should never have allowed home rooftop storage to feed back into the grid unless the home also had a similar or greater level of battery storage.
mick
Click to expand...

Disagree the real problem is no one wants to pay for the bits that allow this to integrate into the system and maintain stability that doesn't make money.

The east coast being a market (your own costs structure are terrible no reflection upon your good self intended) proof.

Note in WA with solar haven't paid a bill for years with some help from all the government largesse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Gen Alpha
Replies
13
Views
719
moXJO
M
Electricity investments
Replies
8
Views
472
Smurf1976
SS1 - Sun Silver
2
Replies
27
Views
5K
Sean K
PGTX - Platinum Global Transition Fund
Replies
1
Views
616
Dona Ferentes
ASK - Abacus Storage King
2
Replies
20
Views
3K
finicky
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more...