The future of energy generation and storage

[sptrawler]

Here is an extract from the link, as it is a pay to read link, my appologies.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency will examine several sites that could support large-scale pumped hydro-electric energy storage.

Mr Turnbull also yesterday sought a commitment from gas companies to increase production, to ensure there was enough energy for the nation’s domestic and industrial use this winter.

The federal government, after months of complaining about inaction from the states and their high renewable energy targets, is now attempting to assert control of the power crisis.

Mr Turnbull said the new project would help make renewable energy reliable — filling gaps caused by intermittent supply and generator outages.

He said the expansion would also lead to greater energy efficiency and help stabilise future electricity supply.

“This will ultimately mean cheaper power prices and more money in the pockets of Australians,” the Prime Minister said.

“For too long policymakers have put ideology and politics ahead of engineering and economics. Successive governments at all levels have failed to put in place the necessary storage to ensure reliable power supply to homes and businesses,” he said.

I will reserve judgement, I've heard it all before, promise the World and deliver sod all.

 

[SirRumpole]

Well this could be a game changer, even Tisme/Rumpole may have a smile on their face.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/pm...d/news-story/1ed9ef8ea3f526dd8b0c6fdd317fa665

Pumped storage on steroids.yeah, now that is a Nation building project.

Thanks for that it looks good.

The Herald Sun article is unreadable for non subscribers, so here is another one.

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/fe...o-major-snowy-hydro-expansion-20170315-guyo3r

 

[Tisme]

Here is an extract from the link, as it is a pay to read link, my appologies.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency will examine several sites that could support large-scale pumped hydro-electric energy storage.

Mr Turnbull also yesterday sought a commitment from gas companies to increase production, to ensure there was enough energy for the nation’s domestic and industrial use this winter.

The federal government, after months of complaining about inaction from the states and their high renewable energy targets, is now attempting to assert control of the power crisis.

Mr Turnbull said the new project would help make renewable energy reliable — filling gaps caused by intermittent supply and generator outages.

He said the expansion would also lead to greater energy efficiency and help stabilise future electricity supply.

“This will ultimately mean cheaper power prices and more money in the pockets of Australians,” the Prime Minister said.

“For too long policymakers have put ideology and politics ahead of engineering and economics. Successive governments at all levels have failed to put in place the necessary storage to ensure reliable power supply to homes and businesses,” he said.

I will reserve judgement, I've heard it all before, promise the World and deliver sod all.

Yes I watched the "walk on" interview when it happened. I thought he showed a glimpse of leadership, without overtly blaming Bill Shorten for his sudden courage.

Then later the ABC interviewed a bod from the gas companies who let it be known that we won't be getting any special price breaks and the price itself must reflect costs to date and the $50bn cost of future build to 2030. In other words using the demand as a means of price gouging

 

[Jorgensen]

I only know the situation at Port Augusta because my daughter lives there,and from time to time I drive up Highway one past the rapidly reducing power site.
Weatherill,SA premier,said that Alinta wanted a cash injection to keep the Northern Power station operating.I think 30 million.
The SA government refused this as they thought it would be the thin edge of the wedge...exposing themselves to claims from other private operators.
The old privatise our profits and socialise our losses regime.

 

[moXJO]

Snowy hydro about to get a boost. Interested to hear from smurf about his thoughts.
Seems impressive.

 

[skyQuake]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...hmidt-flags-promise-of-new-goodenough-battery

Who needs Lithium anyway!

 

[sptrawler]

That sounds promising SkyQuake, because IMO lithium ion in its current form, isn't the answer.
That's why I think S.A would be better served putting in two GT's, rather than ! GT and a battery bank.

 

[Smurf1976]

Snowy hydro about to get a boost. Interested to hear from smurf about his thoughts.
Seems impressive.

In short this week with the Snowy and SA announcements has seen the biggest commitment to new power generating capacity since circa 1980 when NSW decided to build Bayswater power station (2640 MW).

2000 MW from the Snowy is pretty massive. To put it into perspective:

Original capacity of the Snowy when completed = 3740 MW

Present capacity of the Snowy following some recent upgrades = 4100 MW

Loy Yang A+B (combined the largest coal-fired generation complex in Australia) = 3310 MW

Hazelwood power station = 1600 MW

Maximum demand recorded in Victoria = 10,400 MW

Maximum demand recorded in SA = 3400 MW

Capacity of Yallourn when it fist started supplying Victoria back in 1924 = 50 MW (later enlarged to 75 MW in 1928 with B, C, D, E and W stations following over the next 6 decades)

So adding 2000 MW is pretty substantial by any measure.

Whether or not it fixes the problem depends on transmission. Along with the SA gas turbine and battery it's enough (just) provided that all the additional power can be transmitted into Victoria and that requires new lines to be built (ideally connecting into the Vic 500kV system). If the power only goes into NSW however then it doesn't help the situation in Vic and SA at all since the Snowy can already fully load the lines to Vic when needed.

Does it help SA? To the extent that it frees up power in Victoria then yes it sure does since that means more available to SA via the existing lines. At present (post-Hazelwood) Vic doesn't have sufficient capacity during the peaks to supply itself which leaves zero to go into SA. This would substantially address that problem whilst the extra capacity in SA reduces the need for supply from Vic in the first place.

As a power scheme it ticks all the boxes really. Does the job, is a very well proven, reliable and economic technology and it shouldn't upset anyone too much. It's a winner all round.

There's a bigger dimension to all this and that's the political one. In the space of a few days we've seen governments announce plans to build a gas turbine plant, battery storage, and hydro-electric generation along with forcing the hand of the gas companies. This comes not long after government intervention to keep the aluminium industry running in Victoria.

All that seemed politically impossible even just a few months ago but now it has happened.

The world has changed. The overall push to de-regulate, privatise, outsource and otherwise not have government involvement has unraveled far more quickly than practically anyone thought possible.

It's worth adding in that context that there's also a very definite element of nationalism (well, statism but that's not really a word....) in what SA is doing with their patriotic "SA power for South Australians" approach and wanting to control what comes or goes over the border. Look at global politics and the basic pattern seems familiar.

Back to the technical stuff, well hydro has been a dormant technology for development for quite some time. Tas completed its last substantial scheme (the appropriately named Tribute power station, aka the Henty-Anthony Scheme) in 1994 and that was it for large scale hydro in Australia apart from AGL's one-off Bogong power station (aka McKay or Kiewa No.2) in Vic which was completed in 2009. Beyond that it was just Snowy and Hydro Tas tinkering with what they already had and getting a few % more out of it.

More recently we've seen renewed interest in hydro as a technology. First with the Kidston pumped storage scheme in Qld and now with the Snowy expansion. Plus the ideas that are around for pumped storage in SA. So there's definitely more interest in hydro than there has been for a long time and there are other projects being looked at too

There's no chance that we're going to run the whole country with hydro though, we don't have enough potential to do that, but as a way to integrate with wind and solar it leaves everything else for dead that's for sure. Absolutely proven, highly reliable, reasonably economical, inherently provides stability to the grid since big rotating machines are involved and it lasts a century or more. It ticks all the boxes at least from an engineering perspective.

Environmentally hydro has long been contentious, it was the direct trigger for the emergence of mainstream environmentalism in Australia and the Greens are the direct political descendants of a No Dams protest group. But looking at it from a balanced perspective we've come to the point where we've really only got 5 choices:

Coal. Gas. Hydro in conjunction with wind and solar. Unreliable (wind and solar without large scale storage). Expensive (oil, nuclear).

Faced with that reality, hydro looks pretty good as a concept although obviously there are certain locations which are off limits from an environmental perspective.

 

[Smurf1976]

For reference, here's a list of the 10 largest hydro stations in Australia.

Note - All of the Snowy Hydro stations are physically located in NSW. The Murray 1 and 2 stations are electrically in Victoria however.

10 largest by peak capacity (staion - owner - state - capacity)

Tumut 3 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 1800 MW
Murray 1 - Snowy Hydro - Vic - 950 MW
Murray 2 - Snowy Hydro - Vic - 550 MW
Wivenhoe - CS Energy - Qld - 500 MW
Gordon - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 432 MW
Poatina - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 342 MW
Tumut 1 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 320 MW
Tumut 2 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 280 MW
Shoalhaven - Origin Energy - NSW - 240 MW
Reece - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 238 MW

10 largest by annual generated output over the long term (station - owner - state - output)

Gordon - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 1472 GWh
Murray 1 - Snowy Hydro - Vic - 1408 GWh
Poatina - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 1295 GWh
Reece - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 990 GWh
Tumut 1 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 894 GWh
Murray 2 - Snowy Hydro - Vic - 816 GWh
Tumut 2 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 785 GWh
Tarraleah - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 638 GWh
Tungatinah - Hydro Tasmania - Tas - 618 GWh
Tumut 3 - Snowy Hydro - NSW - 582 GWh

As a fundamental design basis, the Snowy system was built to maximise peak output whereas the Tasmanian system was built to maximise total energy generated. Hence the lack of correlation between capacity versus actual output between the two systems. Both are the "right" answer to a different underlying question.

 

[moXJO]

Awesome stuff smurf.
Out of interest how long do the battery storage systems last?

 

[Smurf1976]

Awesome stuff smurf.
Out of interest how long do the battery storage systems last?

That's a hard question since it depends on the technology and how heavily it's used.

But realistically it would be a decade or two making some assumptions about how much use it gets. Every cycle slowly but surely wears out the battery.

For a poorly designed system, well I've seen off-grid solar done by DIY'ers and others without much knowledge completely stuffed in two years and requiring replacement.

For anything else:

Coal, gas - 30 years as an absolute minimum but should go to 40 years. Beyond that they're typically on borrowed time and not worth fixing if something major goes wrong (and at that age, sooner or later something major does go wrong). Hence we've got Liddell (1971), Hazelwood (1964 - 71), Torrens Island (1967 - early 1980's) all in a fairly bad way with the first two of those having announced closure dates (2022 and 2017 respectively) and AGL making no secret that Torrens Island's days are numbered.

Wind - designed for 25 years but there's not enough real world experience to really say. Sure, some were installed back in the 1980's but they were quite a bit different to what's being installed today.

Solar - much the same as wind.

Hydro - pretty much forever if well maintained but maintenance is really the key. They'll fall in a heap if not looked after as will anything but with decent maintenance will last an incredibly long time (centuries potentially).

 

[sptrawler]

In reality the discussion at the moment, is more Nation building and costs $2billion, than the NBN which is going to cost $70 billion.
It isn't meant to be a chap shot, it is just that sensible cheap renewable power, will assist Australia much more than high speed internet.IMO
We aren't there with cheap renewable power, but we certainly have thrown ourselves in the deep end.

I'm sure it will stimulate a lot of new clever technological ideas, it will have to the way we are blowing up base load power stations. but as they say necessity is the mother of invention.

Australia is historically good at overcoming adversity, and is renowned for rising to the challenge, it may actually be something that builds a bit of cohesion and unity.
That would be great, we definitely need that, it may bring the Labor and Liberal Parties to a common focus.
I personally feel the dice has now been rolled, we are the guinea pigs again, so a lot of thought needs to be applied to gain a sensible outcome.
S.A has forced everyone's hand, and to let them go alone won't happen, therefore a more serious approach will be taken.
This really will be interesting. IMO

 

[moXJO]

In reality the discussion at the moment, is more Nation building and costs $2billion

If done near union strongholds then you can blow this figure out to $10-20billion under the libs.

 

[sptrawler]

If done near union strongholds then you can blow this figure out to $10-20billion under the libs.

One hopes not, it really does need to rise above personal greed, this is really important for Australia.

At the moment, we have one side of politics blowing up our only source of cheap power, while the other side is pointing the finger and saying that's naughty.
The whole thing is a political fiasco, to the detriment of Australia in general, it is about time they both grew up and sorted it out.
It really is a focal point, as to the financial future, and living standards in Australia. IMO

As someone pointedly said " It's worse than that, Jim".

 

[Smurf1976]

At the moment, we have one side of politics blowing up our only source of cheap power

The sad thing is you're correct.

Blowing up as in literally blowing up previously perfectly good power stations with explosives. Can't get much more dramatic than that.

 

[noco]

One hopes not, it really does need to rise above personal greed, this is really important for Australia.

At the moment, we have one side of politics blowing up our only source of cheap power, while the other side is pointing the finger and saying that's naughty.
The whole thing is a political fiasco, to the detriment of Australia in general, it is about time they both grew up and sorted it out.
It really is a focal point, as to the financial future, and living standards in Australia. IMO

As someone pointedly said " It's worse than that, Jim".

The problem is there are too many trying to steer the ship and now it is heading for the rocks.

 

[sptrawler]

Awesome stuff smurf.
Out of interest how long do the battery storage systems last?

From my understanding Teslas battery banks are zillions(exaggeration), but heaps of 2 volt AA batteries, they may be bigger, but you get the idea.
They require heaps of cooling tubes running through the battery banks, from my understanding, it really is in its infancy.
https://yournz.org/2017/01/05/tesla-cars-to-be-powered-by-aa-batteries/

That was a quick link, but I have read a lot of info, that indicates they use a lot of very small cells connected in series, parallel configuration to give the output.
Just do your own research, and read up a bit on the realities.
There is no doubt batteries will be a huge component of our energy distribution future, but as to jumping in big time at this point, I would say tread carefully.IMO

 

[SirRumpole]

At the moment, we have one side of politics blowing up our only source of cheap power, while the other side is pointing the finger and saying that's naughty.

Which side is that ?

The one that sold Hazlewood in the first place ?

 

[Tisme]

Which side is that ?

The one that sold Hazlewood in the first place ?

Truth of the matter is that the Federal Govt have been using SA as the whipping boy for months, but now people are getting true facts and WA has gone Labor, Malcolm and his boys want Glasnost. It's been an unedifying display of childish pranks (e.g. lumps of coal), childish arguments and the public have by and large seen through that.

Malcolm's job is on the line so now he's pushing grand halo schemes and interviews explaining he's above politics, while still taking swipes at the Premier of SA. How a paid politician can'purport he's not political is a bit strange.

 

[SirRumpole]

Hydro - pretty much forever if well maintained but maintenance is really the key. They'll fall in a heap if not looked after as will anything but with decent maintenance will last an incredibly long time (centuries potentially).

Also the possibility of long term drought which is not unknown.

Given that, would it be more sensible to build pumped hydro on the coast, pumping sea water ?